Whitmer discusses local issues with The Sentinel

Arpan Lobo @ArpanLobo

Thursday

May 9, 2019 at 3:33 PMMay 9, 2019 at 3:34 PM

HOLLAND — Before delivering a keynote address as the luncheon for the 90th Tulip Time Festival on Wednesday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer spoke exclusively with The Sentinel about the issues her administration faces, as well as those that are prevalent in Ottawa County and the entire state.

Holland Sentinel: Early in your tenure, you’ve placed a big emphasis on, as you say, fixing the damn roads and working on infrastructure. You introduced a new kind of gas tax to pay for the roads. One issue that’s come up locally in Ottawa County is that the gas tax appropriation leaves a gap in funding between the proposed funding strategy and the current strategy. Is there any plan to make that funding up?

Whitmer: The (Public Act) 51 formula is 68 years old. I think it’s served us well, for a time but we have some critical state trunk lines that are falling apart, literally hundreds of supports holding up bridges ... for instance there’s a car hauler that won’t go to the Lake Orion plant for General Motors and pick up cars anymore because the roads are just so bad and it damages the vehicle.

So, what I’m trying to do here, we’ll keep PA 51 intact, so dollars that are currently flowing through it will continue to flow. Ottawa County will be in the same that they have been in terms of priority. It’s when we add the additional revenues that we will have to focus them on trunk lines that are truly falling apart.

When we do that, coupled with the 3 percent increase in revenue sharing with locals, it means that places like Ottawa County aren’t going to fall behind. They’re in fact going to continue to move forward as well.

HS: While we’re on the topic of roads, you released a statement saying that you have no intention of signing recent auto-insurance legislation into law. What do you think is a good plan to address the current insurance costs in the state?

GW: I want to be very clear, I am eager to sign a bill into law that actually lowers rates for people in Michigan. We have the highest insurance rates in the country. And this bill that came through the Senate is just a bunch of window dressing.

There’s no guarantee that rates will be rolled back, there’s only guarantees that are in this bill is that people will lose coverage. If we’re not bringing rates down, we haven’t solved the problem. This bill does not do that.

HS: With the Republicans holding both the Senate and the House, what’s it been like working with the chambers to work on legislation for the state?

GW: We’ve been doing quadrant meetings every other week since the beginning of the year. It’s the first time in 16 years that that’s been done with regularity. And that means we actually sit down every two weeks with the leadership of the Republican and Democratic leadership in both the House and the Senate.

We have gotten a number of bills already signed into law that have had robust bipartisan support and while we’re not going to agree on everything, there’s no question, if we’re not talking, we’re never going to find common ground. I’m committed to that, we’re starting to build relationships and that’s really important to tackle these big problems that we’ve got to take on.

HS: Recently, a bill was passed in the Senate that would give schools more cushion for snow days because of the harsh winter. Is there any appetite at the state level for a longer school year to compensate for our harsh winters and climate change?

GW: With regard to a longer school year, there’s a lot of science out there that has supported the concept of a balanced calendar. And we see a lot of schools adopting it across Michigan because of what it does to stave off the learning loss that happens over the summer, and that is exacerbated if you’re someone in a high-poverty district. So I think that’s a debate worth having.

What do we want to do here in Michigan? Where do we want to be headed? The truth of the matter is, we’re not preparing our kids the way we need to be. So any possible component of making sure we change the outcomes is something worth talking about.

HS: I’ll back out to a national issue that’s impacting West Michigan. Recently, the president announced that he was going to impose more tariffs on imported goods. With a lot of steel industry on the west side of the state, it’s been affecting local businesses. How can a state government levy that? What are the things that the state can do to ease those problems that local businesses are having because of federal policy?

GW: I wish that there was something I could do to bring some stability to international trade and tariff policy, but the fact of the matter is, it’s being announced via Twitter and I think it destabilizes our economy, and creates a lot of unknowns, certainly that’s hard on businesses in Michigan.

Michigan is uniquely harmed because of how much trade we do with our Canadian partners, and how many jobs revolve around the cost of these tariffs and the goods that tariffs are being levied on. I’ve always said that these are complicated issues. We can compete with anyone in the world with a level playing field. We need to level that playing field in a thoughtful, comprehensive way, not on a whim on Twitter that capriciously hurts businesses in Michigan.

HS: While we’re on a national scale, with the Supreme Court deliberating over adding a census question about citizenship, do you think that could adversely affect Michigan?

GW: I think any question that is designed to provoke fear or that will keep certain people from being counted is going to hurt all of us. Our population has grown a little bit, not as fast as other states, so we’re at risk of losing another seat in Congress. When you look at the growth that we have had, half of it was attributed to Michiganders born here and the other half is attributed to immigration and people coming to Michigan. They’re all citizens that need to be counted.

HS: Finally, you’ve made it a point to protect the Great Lakes and the lake water with your and the attorney general’s statements on Line 5. How important do you think protecting our Great Lakes versus adding infrastructure is? Where do you think the balance lies?

GW: I think that we have to get the oil out of the water. That’s what I have said was going to be my primary objective from day one. We are working toward that end, but we’ve got to be responsible about it. And we have to make decisions that don’t land us in court for a decade while the oil continues to be in the water. Affordable energy for Yoopers, as well as getting the oil out are the objectives that I have as we enter into all these negotiations.